Transfer of Covid-19 jabs technology to Africa vital

What you need to know:

  • The project is meant to help low-income countries produce jabs that adhere to global quality standards.
  • The European Union has pledged to invest $45 million to enable vaccine production in Africa.

That Kenya is among six African countries that will receive Covid-19 vaccine technology is a welcome boost to the fight against the pandemic on the continent.

The other countries chosen by the World Health Organization (WHO) are Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal and Tunisia. The six have been named as beneficiaries of the technology transfer to facilitate local production of more doses of vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna.

The six countries will receive mRNA technology in response to the mounting demand for vaccine equity across the world. The project is meant to help low-income countries produce jabs that adhere to global quality standards.

The WHO set up its mRNA technology transfer hub following a tendency by manufacturers in the developed world to hog vaccine supplies as the poor countries struggle with rising infections.

Big pharmaceutical firms may not like this, for obvious reasons, but there is sufficient goodwill to make the project an overwhelming success. The European Union has pledged to invest $45 million to enable vaccine production in Africa.

Covid-19 remains a big health challenge in Kenya, with 322,545 confirmed cases and 5,633 deaths so far. Whereas the WHO had set a target of inoculating at least 40 per cent of the population globally by last December and 70 per cent by mid this year, Kenya is lagging behind the targets.

The country has fully vaccinated nearly five million adults against a target of 19 million or 70 per cent of that demographic by the end of June. It hopes to inoculate 27 million adults by the end of the year.

There have also been supply hitches, which include uncertainty over delivery of 13.3 million Covid-19 doses that Kenya ordered from Johnson & Johnson last year. The technology transfer should be expedited to ensure adequate doses are available at all times.